Cracked China: The June Fourth Incident

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Cracked China: A Look Into the History Behind And Impact of The June Fourth Incident

When footage of the events that occurred in Beijing, China on June 4th, 1989 got through to the world, many eyes witnessed a massacre. A collective cry for democracy had echoed throughout the city, and the sound that came back was that of gun fire. People from all walks of life who had unified for one cause now ran, terrified, from the weaponized arms of a government that was supposedly working for their better interest. A number of courageous citizens caught on camera the horrifying clash between the hopes of people and an iron blockade of oppression, and it is from these desperately filmed moments that the world at large takes its view of Communist China’s treatment of its people. The events they portrayed became known to the world as “The Tiananmen Square Massacre”, and from that moment forward the Western view into the heart of China begins to fog. It becomes difficult to understand the impact the incident had on those involved and on China as a whole.

Twenty years after the events of 1989, the grip of Communist rule has not loosened for the people of China. From the point that communism formed in China forward, students have continually been persecuted for speaking their beliefs about their government. A hope for the people was that when footage of the madness of June 4th, 1989 reached the world, the mechanism of political reform inside China would be unstoppable. This hope, and the millions of hopes of an entire people were snuffed out with what was left of their freedom and, for many, their lives. More than two decades afterward, the tight control of the citizens of the People’s Republic of China remains, and the traditional freedom of e...

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... and resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of lives. (Gate of Heavenly Peace)

Works Cited

Madsen, Richard. China and the American Dream: A Moral Inquiry. University of California Press, 1995. Ebook Collection (EBSCOhost). EBSCO. Web. 24 Oct. 2011.

The Gate of Heavenly Peace. Richard Gorden, Carma Hinton. The Long Bow Group, 1995. DVD

“The Chinese People Have Stood Up!” www.international.ucla.edu UCLA International Institute, n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2011.

Hamish McDonald in Beijing with agencies. "Tiananmen massacre all too real for those still in prison." Sydney Morning Herald, The 06 June 2005: 10. Newspaper Source Plus. Web. 7 Nov. 2011.

Street, Nancy Lynch. In Search Of Red Buddha : Higher Education In China After Mao Zedong, 1985-1990. International Debate Education Association, 2004. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 2 Nov. 2011.

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